AS IF THE precautionary hold-departure order isn’t enough, the United States made sure that the American soil would not be used as refuge of people accused of squandering public funds.
This comes as the US State Department revoked two valid visas under the name of Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives.
No less than the former Speaker’s cousin Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel “Babes” Romualdez confirmed the cancellation of the former Speaker’s diplomatic and business visas.
“We were informed. It’s a decision made by the US State Department,” the ambassador said, as quoted by the Inquirer. The ambassador did not say the reason for the revocation.
In Manila, US Embassy spokesperson Jameson DeBose “neither confirm nor deny the cancellation of Romualdez’s visa, which according to him is covered with confidentiality.
Romualdez, whose name has been tagged as mastermind behind the so-called flood control scandal, has earlier been slapped with a precautionary hold-departure order by the Sandiganbayan — on the request of Ombudsman Crispin Remulla in view of an imminent filing of plunder charges against the beleaguered congressman.
In its petition, Remulla told the Sandiganbayan that the Ombudsman had already made a preliminary finding of probable cause against Romualdez for plunder, direct and indirect bribery, and money laundering.
Romualdez has since denied the allegations.
“How can I be the mastermind? I was the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. But the House of Representatives is only part of one branch of government: the legislature. The national budget is not conceived, executed, implemented, bid out, supervised, and completed by one congressman or even by Congress alone. And certainly not by the Speaker of the House,” he averred.
Meanwhile the Sandiganbayan denied Romualdez’s motion for reconsideration seeking the lifting of the precautionary hold-departure order.
The court said it found probable cause “to believe that respondent will depart from the Philippines to evade arrest and prosecution of crime/s being charged against him.”
